Moundville Native American Festival turns history lessons into reality

Thursday

Oct 10, 2013 at 12:01 AM

The culture students have been learning about in textbooks jumped off the pages and into reality Wednesday at the Moundville Native American Festival.

By Ashley ChaffinStaff Writer | The Tuscaloosa News

The culture students have been learning about in textbooks jumped off the pages and into reality Wednesday at the Moundville Native American Festival.“(The books are) an interpretation,” said John Standingdeer, a Cherokee from Whittier, N.C. “As you're reading it, you can read what it says, but you don't really get a feel of who people are or how they've lived or what they think ... I speak with a voice of the modern time, but I speak with a deep memory and deep respect of the ones who have gone on before.”Standingdeer came this year to participate in the festival's living history area, where he speaks about life in Moundville many years ago while dressed in period attire. The festival, which continues through Saturday, teaches the culture of Southeastern Native Americans through living history, arts and crafts and performances. Standingdeer said everyone from children to parents are surprised by what they didn't know about the culture and what they find out by asking questions and visiting the festival. “It's like Mount Everest. It's there but you don't know anything about it,” he said. “This way, they get to ask and they get to ask people who are actually native people. Though our information may be of modern times because, of course, we are not of those people, but we do have feelings about our history, our culture and we are proud of where we came from and our blood.” Students from Alabama schools and all around the Southeast visited the festival Wednesday. Cynthia Miller and her son, Jacob, came with students from Moselle Elementary School in Jones County, Mississippi. She said schools from around the county made the trip Wednesday. “They are studying archaeology in their program, so they are incorporating this into that,” she said. “I like to look at all the crafts and see all the different things they make with natural products.” Her son said his favorite part of the festival was getting to walk around and talk to everybody, as well as getting to spend time with his mom. “Everybody has been so nice to tell us about what they've made and their history,” she said. Among those demonstrating crafts was Erik Gillespie who was showing off Southeastern silver work. For Gillespie, the Moundville Native American Festival is a family events, which is what has brought him to the festival for the past 14 years. “My dad taught me the value of my ancestry and the tradition of the Cherokee ways,” he said. “I want to carry that on and teach it to the kids, so it will be carried on and won't die out.”Gillespie's father, Bobbie, was the chief of the blue clan of the Echota Cherokees. Erik Gillespie was taught silver work from the time he was 15 and when his father passed away, Erik Gillespie took over his dad's post at the festival. “I am demonstrating Southeastern silver work and telling the difference between Southeastern and Southwestern,” he said. “We didn't have turquoise in Southeastern culture. What we did is chasing.”Chasing is the practice of drawing a design onto the silver and using tools to carve the design into it. Other crafts being showcased at the festival include bow making, featherwork and Choctaw dressmaking. Mary Newman, who has been coming to the festival for 18 years, showcased her pottery, which includes firing the clay bowls.“I show kids where the yellow paint comes from, how to make a bowl and how to make a paint brush,” she said, adding that the kids always seem to have a good time. Besides the living history and demonstrations, the festival features a kids zone, a traders' circle where patrons can buy everything from a bow and arrow to Native American jewelry, and the chance to walk around the grounds and the museum.